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We’re starting to wake up to the importance of sleep. Leaving sleep for whatever time you have left over in the day is not such a smart move, especially if you’re hoping to live a long, healthy and productive life.

Logging a good night’s sleep might seem more like an indulgence than a necessity, especially in today’s society, in which surviving on minimal shut-eye earns you bragging rights. You’re simply too busy to do something as mundane (and seemingly unproductive) as sleep. Besides, this mindset comes with rewards, because it implies you’re a harder worker. You’ll just sleep when you’re dead, right?

Turns out, that could be sooner than later if you don’t revamp your relationship with your bed. That’s because sleep is often considered one of the three pillars of health, along with diet and exercise. More recently, however, it’s being seen not just as a pillar but as the foundation. “Sleep affects everything you do in life,” says W. David Brown, PhD, CBSM, coauthor of Sleeping Your Way to the Top (Sterling, 2016) and a sleep psychologist at Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern in Dallas.

That’s a message, however, Americans apparently aren’t getting. One in three adults aren’t getting the sleep they need, defined as at least seven hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has declared America’s sleep crisis a national public health issue. Here’s how to prevent it from becoming a personal health crisis.